Page 4 of Word of the Wicked (Murder in Moonlight #5)

Deciding to work in Solomon’s office—he was far too tense and brittle for her to leave him alone for too long right now—she collected her notepaper and pen and returned to his room, where he barely looked up from his desk.

One would not have known, from the concentration in his face or the speed of his hand gliding across the page, that he was tired to the point of exhaustion and severely rattled by emotional strain and anxiety.

Interruption would not help. So, she sat in one of the comfortable chairs and wrote out her instructions to Sarah, her lieutenant at the establishment.

While she was rummaging through the railway timetables to discover where and when they could board a train to Sutton May tomorrow, she realized that Solomon would not now come with her.

She understood it, and yet her heart sank for entirely selfish reasons.

Another separation, another chasm opening between them, when she already missed him so badly she wanted to howl.

It had taken her some time to realize that Solomon had proposed Silver and Grey as a means of deepening their friendship, of being together, to discover where it was leading. To love, of course, if it had not already been there. Working apart had never been part of their plan.

Janey came in to clear away the tea things.

“He gone, then?” she asked, jerking her head at the sailor’s cap, which still lay on the chair where David had left it.

“Not exactly ,” Constance said, just as David walked hesitantly back into the room.

Janey stopped clattering. Her jaw dropped.

“Dear God,” she said, dragging her awed gaze from David to Constance. “There’s two of them now? You are one bloody lucky woman.”

Constance squashed back the hysterical laughter. “Keep it buttoned, Janey,” she said. “You haven’t seen this gentleman.”

“I suppose I ain’t seen his hair all over the floor, neither?” Janey retorted. “Don’t need to clean it up, then, do I?”

“Sadly, yes,” Constance said serenely. “But not until Mr. Grey has finished his report.”

“It’s done.” Solomon pushed back his chair. “If he wants any more, he can ask me.” He handed a fat envelope to Janey, who took it in her teeth, since her hands were full, and sailed out of the room.

Solomon and David regarded each other.

“You make a good me,” Solomon said at last.

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re right,” Constance said. “You slouch and you walk like a seaman, as if the ground is rolling beneath you. Straighten your back and stride out as if you’re the king.”

Solomon regarded her. “I do not walk as if I’m the king.”

“Emperor, then,” she said. “Don’t worry, David, no one will notice. You can go in the carriage.”

“Janey’s already sent a boy to fetch mine,” Solomon said.

“Constance will go with you, David, and make sure the servants leave you alone for the next couple of days. Jenks will keep any visitors away. If you feel the urge to go out, just don’t say more than a good morning if anyone recognizes you, and never stop to talk. ”

“Your accents are different,” Constance added. “I suppose you can’t go home, Solomon, if David is meant to be you. You had better go to the establishment to sleep, because it’s not exactly comfortable here.”

To her annoyance, she blushed as she spoke, but Solomon did not appear to notice.

“Oh, I’m not going to sleep just yet,” he said. “I’m going to the police to see what they know about the murder. David, do you have a name for the victim? Or the sailor you thought killed him on the ship?”

David shook his head. “I don’t remember. I’ve a feeling I didn’t like either of them and kept out of their way. But it’s fuzzier than most of the memories that have come back to me, more like a nightmare. Likely, I had nothing to do with the merchant.”

“Why would a wealthy merchant drink at the Crown and Anchor?” Constance asked, frowning.

“Even I have drunk there,” Solomon said, “with my wallet sewn into my coat. Perhaps he was looking for a ship’s crew or fallen on hard times. My hope is that the police have discovered his identity and are prepared to divulge it. At least that would give us a starting point.”

“What if they just arrest you because you look like me?” David said uneasily.

“Oh, it won’t enter their heads,” Solomon assured him. “We have friends among the police. Sort of.” He hesitated. “We’ll be gone on another case for a couple of days, but we will set inquiries in motion and return as soon as we can.”

He still intended to come.

Flabbergasted, Constance caught his eye. “Are you sure—”

He gave her no time to finish. “Yes.” He nodded to David, almost as if he really were a mere client. “Good luck. I’ll see you when we come back. In the meantime, if you remember anything else helpful, write. Constance will give you the address and Janey will be here at the office.”

It was too difficult for him, she realized. He needed the physical distance—and perhaps the other, unconnected investigation—to be able to think clearly.

She wondered if David knew that. If he cared. Like Solomon, he was difficult to read. And he was also shocked, appalled by what had happened, and dazed, probably, by his still-returning memories of Solomon and his family in Jamaica.

It wasn’t surprising that the short carriage ride to Solomon’s house near the Strand passed mostly in silence.

“He lives here ?” David murmured as the carriage pulled up at the front door. “I thought he would have some big mansion in Mayfair or Belgravia.”

“No. I have one of those. Solomon’s tastes are simpler. He only has three servants—the coachman, a butler, and a cook. At least you won’t be disturbed by a valet.”

“A what?”

The coachman opened the carriage door and handed Constance down.

David landed beside her almost immediately.

While she dismissed the coachman, David fumbled in his unfamiliar coat pocket and fished out the key Solomon had given him.

However, if he had hoped to avoid the servants by this method of entry, he was disappointed.

Jenks materialized almost before the door was closed.

“Mr. Grey is exhausted, Jenks. Could you send up some luncheon in a little? Something cold might be best because I’m trying to persuade him to go to bed.”

“Of course, madam,” Jenks replied, bowing.

Somehow, Constance had won Jenks to her side—possibly because he had no idea who and what she was, but possibly because he just liked to see his master happy. And Constance was making him happy.

Mostly.

She gave her hat and coat to the butler, and David remembered to hand over his. Then she took his arm in a cozy sort of way and guided him to the main sitting room, which also served as dining room and study.

David looked about him in a baffled, curious kind of a way.

“All those books,” he remarked. “ This is Solomon.”

“Even at ten years old?”

“Always.” He walked restlessly across the room, examining pictures on the walls. “This is the island. Jamaica.”

“Do you remember living there?”

He nodded. “I do now. In bits and pieces, like any childhood, I suppose.” He shivered and drew nearer to the fire. “Why did he come here?”

Constance sat down, watching him. “To England? To make it the center of his trading empire, I suppose.”

“He is well thought of,” David said. “Wealthy, successful.”

Interesting. David had made some effort to look into his brother. “He worked hard at it,” Constance said.

“Why?”

“Largely because it was something to do, I suspect. His is a restless soul, always looking for something else.”

“But now he has you.” It was a statement, and yet Constance thought it was not entirely free of mockery.

“He has me,” she said steadily.

“Will you live here with him?” David asked, walking to the window and looking out over the roofs to the river. “In this rather modest little house where you can still smell the stink from the river?”

“You are remembering your past, aren’t you? No, we decided to choose a home together.”

“Where is that?”

“We haven’t found it yet.” She felt defensive because, in truth, that failure bothered her.

Their engagement had not been meant to last so long.

But work, Silver and Grey, had got in their way.

Was that her fault? Had she tried too hard to make this a success because she so desperately wanted to make respectable money? To be worthy of him?

And he had not come to her bed since that first time…

Banishing the memory, she refocused on David.

He said, “I used to know what he was thinking. I remember that. We finished each other’s sentences and sometimes didn’t even need to speak at all to understand. He was like my other half. And yet we forgot each other.”

“Oh, no.” She wasn’t having that. “He never forgot you for a moment. He scoured Jamaica looking for you for the rest of his childhood. Your father scoured the other islands till he died, in search of any word, any clue. While Solomon traveled the world, making his fortune, he was always looking. He pays agents in every major port in the world to look out for you, to pass any possible word on to him. I believe he had a few hopeful lines of inquiry, but they always came to nothing. Until, quite by accident, he saw you in a photograph.”

There was no malice in David’s intent gaze. “Because I look like him still. I’m not like him, though, am I?”

“In character? I barely know you.”

“But you’re helping me. You don’t believe I murdered that man?”

“Actually, I have no idea. But Solomon thinks if you did it, you did it for a reason that makes sense to you both, even if not to the law.”

“Is that what he said?”

“No. I just know Solomon.”

The long eyelashes, so similar to Solomon’s, swept down across David’s cheeks. But she had already glimpsed the loss.

“Are you really a bad man, David Grey?” she asked.

He nodded. “I have been. It never goes away.”

“I don’t believe you forgot him either,” Constance said. “He was still your brother, whom you wanted to be like again. Perhaps, when you imagined being someone else, you were just remembering him. Perhaps he was your antidote to badness, because you never wanted to be bad in the first place.”

A strangled, savage laugh broke from him. “An unexpectedly kind interpretation of mad and bad.”

And dangerous to know?